As computer devices and systems continue to advance and become more complex, effective and efficient power management of computer devices and systems have become more and more important in system design and implementation. Typically, a computer system may include an input/output (I/O) control unit (also called I/O controller herein) that provides the interface control between various I/O or peripheral devices and a central processing unit (CPU) (also called host processor or host herein). The I/O controller can be a stand-alone unit, an integrated part of a chipset, or a part of some larger unit that controls the interfaces between various system components and the host processor. A typical I/o controller may include a serial interface unit (SIU) that controls serial interrupt requests (SERIRQ) protocol which allows a single signal to be used to report interrupt requests. Typically, the serial IRQ signal is provided to an interrupt controller via a serial IRQ signal line coupling between the SIU and the interrupt controller. Generally, a typical interrupt controller is responsible for accepting, prioritizing, and report interrupts requests that are initiated by peripheral devices to the host processor. The interrupt controller may be a stand-alone unit or an integrated part of the I/O controller, depending on the various system designs and configurations. The SIU is generally responsible for generating the serial IRQ signal to notify the interrupt controller of incoming interrupt requests. Typically, the SIU can operate in a continuous mode or a quiet mode. The quiet mode is used when the system wants to save power and the host will not keep polling the peripheral devices every frame to see if an interrupt has occurred. However, the majority of computer system platforms operate in the continuous mode. When the system operates in the continuous mode, generating the serial IRQ signal involves driving the serial IRQ signal line low for every serial IRQ frame if there is no pending interrupt request and then driving the serial IRQ signal line high when there is a pending interrupt request. Generation of the serial IRQ signal in this manner consumes more power and thus is not efficient, especially since power savings have become more and more critical in system design and implementation due to power, space, and area constraints.